Traditions

Flashback - Easter 2008

I love traditions.  I love the feeling of the familiar and the comfort of the known.  Today, I went to the mother of all traditions.  As part of my job I was able to go to the annual Chrism Mass at the Cathederal in Boston. 

My job did not start out as this.  It started as Development Director for a Catholic elementary school - I now work in the parish as well.  I am spread too thin in my life.  I tackle the Capital Campaign and issues that I had no idea about before I started. I joke with myself that I have been thrust into the DiVinci Code.  I laugh because no amount of church going prepares you for the climate and culture of the church. 

But today I was included in the Chrism Mass.  I did not know anything about this Mass.  I did not know the beauty of the Cathederal - that it is one of the largest in the world. I did not know - until our tour after - that there is a cross with pieces from Jesus' actual cross.  The cross.  It is difficult to not get swept up in the power of the tradition - even if it is not your tradition - when you are at this kind of celebration.

I was surrounded by music bouncing off the arches.  Amidst all of the tradition, the Cardinal was timely and relevent in his homily.  He moved me.  I was in the moment - but also far away.  I was swept into my own traditions.  The stuffing we have every Thanksgiving, the Easter Egg Roll we attend every year, the frosting we get on our birthday cakes with roses "all around," the initiation to Kappa as a young college girl.  I was swept away but firmly planted in today.

I thought of the traditions I am sharing with my children.  The laughter of family stories from New Bedford shared with the cousins - told so many times even the kids could tell them now.  The beach days, the blindfolded cousin adventures...I could go on. How the newest generation needs to hold them as close as I do.

As I head into the holiday weekend - I am casting aside all that I am feeling overworked, overworrried, and overthinking.  I am going to be caught up in the tradition...and thankfully that means cake with frosting and lots of laughter!